


Last Line of Defense

by boonies



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki, JYJ - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boonies/pseuds/boonies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world goes to war. Junsu doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Line of Defense

*

 

So, North Korea launches a satellite.

 

It launches ten over the course of a year, and then Japan urges stricter sanctions and then there's two sunken South Korean ships and civilian casualties.

 

And then there's war.

 

And then it goes like this:

 

Jaejoong has to go.

 

Jaejoong is the oldest and there's no putting it off. There's no legal or professional loophole left. He has to ship off for training to one of the peripheral islands within a week.

 

Yoochun gets an exemption. He has asthma and problematic blood counts. But he waves it off and enlists anyway because, he tells Junsu, maybe this way, _Yoohwan_ won't have to.

 

Junsu knows better.

 

Junsu knows where Jaejoong goes, Yoochun will follow.

 

So Junsu has a natural, or maybe conditioned, urge to trail after them, but Jaejoong says, "No, you have that American collab coming up," and Yoochun adds with a grin, "Your cats would die," and Junsu can't go.

 

They opt out of a public send-off.

 

Junsu goes with Yoochun and Jaejoong and they get their hair cropped short, so short Junsu wants to cry but he doesn't. He tells them it looks awesome and that this should be their new album concept for when they come back.

 

" _If_ we come back," Yoochun jokes.

 

Jaejoong nudges him and the smile fades.

 

Junsu makes a joke when they get on the bus, or maybe he doesn't, maybe he cries, maybe his whole body wracks with sobs, wrecks itself when there's nothing left but dust settling on gravel.

 

He hears about Yunho from Hyukjae before the media breaks the story.

 

"He's deploying to the border," Hyuk says, angry. "And Teuk's moving to a sniper unit up in the DMZ."

 

A whole generation of sunbaes is gone before Junsu even has enough time to blink.

 

And then a patriotic generation of hoobaes.

 

So Junsu texts Changmin.

 

He hasn't spoken to him in so many years it feels like texting a stranger but his phone starts vibrating ten seconds after the message goes through.

 

Junsu picks up.

 

"They're so fucking stupid," Changmin shouts, "so fucking stupid I don't care if they all fucking die."

 

Junsu just holds the phone to his ear for a long moment, words stuck in his throat.

 

" _Fuck_ ," Changmin says in this broken, desperate way. "Junsu, they're all gonna die. What if they die."

 

Junsu curls around the phone.

 

"You'd make a great solo artist," he says because he doesn't know what else to do.

 

Changmin doesn't laugh. "I'm not soloing this."

 

Junsu's stomach drops.

 

"I'm gonna enlist," Changmin says and Junsu hopes the rolling blackouts kick in and disconnect the phone lines.

 

"Changmin..." he starts carefully.

 

"No, you don't understand," Changmin snaps. Something clatters in the background, like maybe a suitcase. "Hyung's so fucking stupid. He's so stupid. He's gonna try to make friends with the enemy and they'll blow his head off. Junsu, he's so fucking stupid, I—"

 

Junsu hasn't heard Changmin's voice crack in so long his heart sort of hurts.

 

"I have to be there," Changmin says, voice catching.

 

And then it's just Junsu.

 

The media takes it easy on him, praises his free benefit concerts, his unwavering optimism and morale boosting, his commitment to all his enlisted brothers and the troops, and no one really says anything until Junho announces he's dispatching to Japan.

 

"As a liaison," he says, curled up on the garden bench with Xiahki.

 

Junsu pets their dog and says nothing.

 

Junho ships off on a private plane in May. It's shot down over the East Sea twenty minutes into the flight and no amount of retaliation fixes their mother and father, so Junsu relocates to Daegu, just temporarily, he tells them, promises things, swears he'll be safe, says he's sorry.

 

In Daegu, he helps with rebuilding and translations and recruitment.

 

Time passes quickly.

 

Most days, Jaejoong sends him emails. Sometimes they're censored, sometimes not. Sometimes there are pictures. Jaejoong hanging off a tree, upside down. Jaejoong making faces at military food. Jaejoong adding color to his fatigues.

 

Jaejoong meeting up with Yoochun in Jeju, wearing a blinding smile, wearing Yoochun's beret, wearing Yoochun's fingers around his wrist like a favorite bracelet.

 

In August, a round of missiles takes down a military base and Changmin's stationed there and for ten hours, Junsu thinks he's dead.

 

"He's okay," Yunho says. The signal's weak, breaking up every two seconds. "...a month... rehabilitation in Seoul... discharged... sending him home..."

 

A week later, Junsu takes the train to Seoul.

 

The hospital is over capacity but Changmin still has his own room.

 

"You look like shit," Changmin grins, pale and lanky, stretched up in bed, one leg elevated on a pillow.

 

"And you look like a baby sociopath," Junsu snorts.

 

"You didn't bring me flowers," Changmin pouts, scratching at his buzz cut. There are deep dark circles under his eyes and his lips are painfully chapped but he's almost giddy.

 

"Are you on morphine?" Junsu asks warily, creeping closer.

 

"They discharged me," Changmin beams, clasping his hands behind his head with a smirk.

 

"Congrats?" Junsu says helplessly, sitting down by the foot of the bed.

 

Changmin's lips curl.

 

"I'm gonna re-enlist," he says, smug and satisfied. "Considering my record, they'll have to send me _wherever_ I want to go this time, right? This time, they _have_ to?"

 

Junsu knows where Changmin wants to go.

 

He hopes he can.

 

Two months later, their old manager calls and tells Junsu he's sorry, that he's really fucking sorry, about everything, about the lawsuit and about the company and about their old schedules and that he's so fucking sorry but Yunho's gone.

 

It's friendly fire, the news report drones on, and Junsu has to take something strong to sleep.

 

He has to take something strong for a week because no one can find Changmin.

 

And then, in December, after a blizzard, no one can find Yoochun, either, and Jaejoong sends frantic emails, then calls and calls and calls, but Junsu can't pick up.

 

Can't do anything.

 

Overwhelmed, he keeps trying to hit pause and rewind, keeps trying to wake up, keeps trying to understand how and why, but all he gets are migraines.

 

Jaejoong stops calling.

 

On the second national day of mourning, Junsu packs up. He reclaims his old Bentley, impounded by the corps, and drives north.

 

He speeds through neglected back roads, and scratches the Bentley on wooded shortcuts, and maxes out the speed gauge as though he can find Yunho and Changmin and Yoochun and Jaejoong, as though he can find them all if he tries hard enough, goes fast enough, breaks his car and speed limits and physics and himself.

 

He doesn't find anything.

 

He gets stopped at sunset, at some random check-point and the kids by the barricades don't recognize him, assume he's some rich brat dodging the draft, turn him around with a good amount of disdain.

 

He drives to Seoul, to Gangnam, to Jaejoong's old studio, now boarded up and in disrepair.

 

He clears an area by the keyboard and sits down.

 

The electricity's off so the studio remains dark and quiet as Junsu glides his fingers across the keys. He closes his eyes and pounds out a silent piece by Satie, because Yoochun loves Satie and all the gnossiennes and gymnopédies. He segues into the bridge of Bolero because Yunho loves the pliés accompanying it and Bolero's general message and arrangement and beauty.

 

By the time his fingers remember the intro to a stupid limerick that made Changmin laugh so hard he almost threw up, Junsu's vision is blurry.

 

His fingers still over the keys.

 

He can't play right. He can't remember. And he can't ask for reminders because they've all gone where he can't follow, like they always have.

 

He alternates between feeling numb and feeling relieved, just goes on and exists, and then one day, he stops praying. He's in the shower and he's repeating things he learned in childhood, the prayers, the mantras, about god having a plan, about god being infallible, about god knowing best, and he thinks why, why pray to change god's mind if it's impossible anyway.

 

He replaces prayer with numbers. He counts odds, then evens, square roots, backwards and cubed, until he falls asleep. He replaces numbers with notes, runs the scale up and down in his head, notates rhythm, writes complex meters.

 

It keeps anxiety at bay.

 

He writes a boring, uninspired song in February, maybe on Yunho's birthday or Changmin's, or maybe Valentine's Day, and his phone rings as he's wrapping up the bridge.

 

It's a blocked number but he picks up because what if it's Yoochun or Jaejoong or Changmin, what if it's good news.

 

It's not.

 

Yoochun's body is returned on a snowy fucked up morning, with seven others and a flag and a blockade to keep the media out.

 

Soon, there's UN resolutions and sanctions and operation this and that, and the war slowly fizzles out. It's nothing significant, no treaties or ceasefires or nuclear apocalypse.

 

One day, it's just... over.

 

It's six months to Junsu's thirtieth birthday by the time the draft is abolished and he spends an hour laughing hysterically at the timing and the irony and the universe.

 

A week later, Hyukjae comes home.

 

"Any word yet?" he asks over drinks.

 

Junsu glances at his phone. "No."

 

Hyuk watches him for a long moment. "Are you pissed?"

 

Junsu shrugs. "They left me behind."

 

Frowning, Hyuk grabs for a soju bottle. "They protected you."

 

The words taste bittersweet. "Whatever, I was always the fifth wheel, it's fine, you don't have to make me feel better about how shitty—"

 

"You know what the fifth wheel actually is?" Hyuk mumbles, bringing the bottle to his lips.

 

"A spare?" Junsu ventures, unamused.

 

"The steering wheel."

 

Junsu pauses. His heart clenches painfully.

 

He carries the words with him for a month, until he picks Yoohwan up from the airport, and says, "Did your brother leave any of his stuff at your house?"

 

Yoohwan brings him boxes and bags of unfinished songs, handwritten letters, pictures and trinkets and junk, and Junsu emails his old manager, and then he has a room full of Changmin and Yunho and Jaejoong, too.

 

He also has a legacy to protect, so he works for days and weeks, piecing scraps of thought and emotion together, binding memories to regrets, drawing from experience and affection, and by the end of July, he has nineteen songs.

 

That night, he sleeps for ten hours straight and wakes to sunshine. He wakes with a clear mind. Wakes with a purpose.

 

He keeps his old number, phone in his pocket at all times.

 

And then he settles in, settles down, and waits for the oldest and the youngest to come home so he can fix them both.

 

Slowly, patiently, he records the entire album in Jaejoong's old studio.

 

When he's done, his voice is raw and broken.

 

But when he plays the songs back, it almost sounds like five.


End file.
